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Thursday, 30 July 2015

So, you may recall I discovered the other week that I own ninety books about food. Recipe books, cookery books, history of food books, travel books with recipes in....I have them all. And I love reading them all.

But recently, I have been rather remiss and rather lazy when it comes to trying out new recipes and dishes. So, each Friday if I can manage it, I'm going to try something different....whether it be a brand new cake, dessert, or a savoury supper dish.

So, what book do I choose to test first? Why, the latest in my collection of course....one which I bought about three weeks ago. Well actually I bought two copies, one for me and one for my daughter.

"Lucy's Bakes" was published in April by Hardie Grant Books, and it's full of gorgeous traybakes, cakes, biscuits and bread.

I've known Lucy Cufflin, the author for years. She knows her food, as a former chef to the Britsh Ambassador in Sweden, the Executive Chef for Skiworld. She has her own food business and I worked with her on a British Red Cross fund raising committee for a number of years. She's funny and feisty, and a no nonsense type of gal...and good to have a few glugs of wine with.

Anyway, we met for lunch a few weeks back.

Also there, and also on that committee was the other Lucy, Lucy Lee-Tirrell who has collaborated on this book. The two Lucys are friends who are joined at the hip when it comes to cooking, baking, and devising recipes...and neither of them can stop talking about food.﻿

I've eaten lots of their food before , so trust what they tell me to do in a recipe, which is just as well, when I tried their "weird and wonderful banana cake".

The title intrigued, but how can you resist the first line of the recipe which says "Brace yourselves!"
Well, I couldn't.....but almost flinched when next come the words "this cake is made with mayonnaise."

Now, I've been making banana loaves for years, and have always gone back to Nigella's recipe. But I trust the two Lucys. And you should too, even though you might be initially slightly put off by the sloppy mixture with a whiff of mayo coming from the bowl.

Because what you get, is the most beautifully light, moist banana cake, which keep in the tin for four or five days and still tastes fabulous. I've made this cake twice now, testing it on my family and friends at work. Everyone loves it and no one suspected that mayonnaise was involved in its making.

One of my sons hasn't been eating cake for a number of months now , he's juicing, detoxing , eating healthily , you name it etc....but he seemed to be mysteriously drawn to the kitchen as the cake came out of the oven. I cut a slice for him . The cake, still warm, disappeared in a a few nanoseconds. Like Oliver Twist, he held his plate out and asked for more.

And although it does taste delicious still warm and fragrant, please leave most of it until the following day, and the next day, when it just gets better in terms of flavour and moistness.

As for my friends at work, well , they loved it too. I loved it, and will have to ban myself for making it more than once a week.

I've also made Lucy's soft cookies...another oh so easy recipe which is cheap and cheerful too. My cookies didn't look exactly like Lucy's I have to admit, but boy, they went down a storm.

There's over 200 recipes in this book, and what I like is the no nonsense directions when making each recipe...concise but informative, with lots of suggestions for ways for adding different ingredients to adapt the cakes or biscuits etc.

For example, Lucy Le Tirrell's weird and wonderful banana cake can be also adapted to make a carrot cake too. There's plenty of short cuts in this book too...making every recipe accessible to complete beginners. Plus, each recipe has been tested by volunteers, and their comments are also included.

I also like the little details of how they found or devised each recipe. Anyway, what do I bake next from the book? I'll definitely give the carrot cake a go, but not until I've tried after I've made the lemon curd cake and the parsnip and ginger cake. Oh, and the biscotti and bread and.....

But before I get carried away, here's the recipe which I know you will love....

Saturday, 25 July 2015

I don't eat meat every day. Not even every other day, and I've never bought a beef burger. A veggie burger yes, but a beef burger. Nope. It's not just the beef bit of a burger I dislike, I can't stand the bun either. It's usually what I call a plastic bit of bread. Yuck!

So, what a revelation it was on Wednesday night, to be not only eating a beef burger, and the bun, to be actually enjoying it. I ate ribs too...chunky, moist ribs with a smoky flavour, and finished off with with a veggie burger which turned out to be my favourite.
.

I was at Meatcure , a new joint in town..on Highcross Street in Leicester. It was their launch, the second restaurant belonging to owner Rob Martyniak and partners and a stable mate to their Market Harborough.

Launches of new events or products can be interesting....sometimes in a car crash kind of way, where no one turns up. The executives/owners are sweating with nervousness, the PR dollies are over you like a rash and yet they're rationing out the warm glasses of fizz in case hundreds suddenly turn up.

That wasn't the case on Wednesday night, the place was heaving at just ten minutes after the specified opening time. Glasses of ice cold Prosecco were being thrust into everyone's hands or beer for the boys. Within a moment, the first of the tasting trays were being carried through the throng.

I sat down at a table to check out the first offering...a big, fat juicy burger.

Suddenly, the light was stolen, I could hardly see, the sunlight streaming through the windows disappeared. I turned to my left, and realised that half the Leicester Tigers rugby team had turned up. With shoulders the width of buses, and nearly as tall, it was they who were blocking my light. They pounced on the beer and everything else offered with gusto.

So did everyone else, there were quite a few familiar faces there from work, from elsewhere...so lots of chats, more fizz and more food. It all just kept coming, including the ribs

The kitchen staff were busy as was owner Rob Martyniak.

I managed to have a quick chat...where the hell did you get these brioche buns for the burgers I asked. He smiled..."from an independent bakery in Market Harborough. It took four and a half months to perfect the recipe." That's what I call dedication, and the meat is from the butcher I always go to in the village of South Kilworth.

Rob and his team also do street and festival food, that's how they started.So, they obviously are experienced in delivering food that people want, but Leicester seems to be a magnet at the moment for other burger restaurants, an indie or two as well as the big boys, the big names.

So why here? Just around the corner from the huge Highcross Centre ? Surely there's a lot of competition? Rob smiled again..."I reckon we're different enough to attract others. We're not a big, impersonal place , and we're friendly."But he also adds that although everything has to pay it's way, for him, for him, opening a restaurant, serving food is all about the adventure, and the people you meet along the way.

By now, I had to go, just another glass of prosecco , time to say goodbye, and inch my way out of the crowded Meatcure. In a couple of hours I had just eaten more meat than I usually do in a fortnight.
Oh, and I'd also had the best and biggest onion ring I've ever eaten.

Friday, 24 July 2015

Erm...there's 90 of them. Yes, I have 90 recipe books and books about food.

I didn't realise I had so many ....at a guess last year I thought there may be 60. Oops...
Some of them are on the bookshelves in the kitchen

Others can be found on the dining table,

by my bed, on the coffee table...wherever I sit and read, there's bound to be a book about food close by.

My collection of books holds the usual suspects that can be found on many shelves....offerings from Nigel, Nigella and Jamie. There's two from Otam Ottalenghi, a couple from Skye Gingell, a tattered , original old copy of Elizabeth David's French Food as well as several paperback copies of her others, there's quite a few books on Italian cookery, Australian fusion food, thai food, books on fruit,and mother and daughter Jane and Sophie Grigson put in a couple of appearances. And if you want to read a book about cowboy food, well I have one right here.

There's even one that I helped to produce with Kim Hall....a book compiled of 25 years of recipes from Miranda Hall which was published by the British Red Cross to raise funds.

Reading a cookery book isn't just about the recipes, the best , for me, give an insight into the culture of the country where they came from, and I'm a sucker for personal stories which accompany the recipes themselves.

There's something so comforting about being able to nestle down and read about food. There's something exciting about planning a different meal, to search for inspiration. Plus, there's something so satisfying about looking for a recipe to make something delicious from fruit and vegetables I've grown myself.

The thing is, I do have my favourite books and my go to recipes of dishes I know and love. Especially if friends are coming around. Better be safe than sorry is my motto.

I also tend to use what I've got...sometimes I'm not organised to select a recipe and make sure I've got all the ingredients in advance!

However, in the spirit of being more organised, and trying out some different recipes , I've decided that each Friday I'm going to be taking two of my favourite or two completely new recipes from a different book in my collection and making them. I'll share them with you.....and let's see where it takes us. Here on this blog, Friday will be Foodie Friday!

In the meantime, why not listen to this?

It's a broadcast from a couple of Fridays ago on BBC Leicester. My friend at work Ed Stagg invited himself around for a late lunch...he wanted to record me making an easy peasy recipe.

So here is what I made....and this is what it sounded like! Go on, you know you want to listen....and the recipe is there too.

Friday, 3 July 2015

If it's the last Saturday in June, it can only mean one thing....it's the annual barn dance in our village.
Yee haw!

It's a tradition which has been going for a long time and which is looked forward to every year.
My gang of children began going when they were knee high to grasshoppers, and as they became teenagers, their friends would come too. As they became older teenagers, all their friends would camp overnight...and the garden began to look like a mini festival, with at least ten tents pitched on the lawn....

By the time the gang had reached their twenties, there was up to forty staying overnight...which was all very well, but they wouldn't go to sleep. Or go home the following day.......the kitchen would be full of people with hangovers, queues for the loos and they'd all want toast and coffee.

And lunch....that's when I would get the bell out. It's an old school bell with a satisfyingly loud clang, which I started ringing at 11.30 am or 12noon...and they all knew they had to to skidaddle very shortly afterwards.

This year was surprisingly civilised...as usual the gang began to gather about 4.30pm for drinks in the garden.....

And one person we were all pleased to see was Sam Beckett, pictured on the right, he's the one who was missing in Nepal after the earthquake....and experienced some very frightening times.

Of course the dogs are in the tick of it having lots of attention too....

And the girls were enjoying the Pimms which Elly made...

And then it was time to head off the other end of the village, to the barn dance itself....for old friends to meet up

And to sit outside in the early evening sunshine and tuck into the barbecue. On the right is the lovely Shirley who very kindly lets us use her barn every year...

And in the barn itself was the band who were playing jigs and reels at breakneck speed﻿

﻿

It's a night when everyone dances....no matter what age they are...there's no "I'm too cool for this" malarkey, and besides, it's such good fun...

The younger children then go home, then at about 10pm, the disco starts...the decibel levels rise, ﻿

And we dance until about 1am....taking time out around the sides to flop on the bales of hay for a breather..

Or having a drink as the sun goes down....

And at the end of the night, everyone slips away, walking home in the moonlight....saying goodbye to the organisers, Ian, Jules and Tom , who have worked so hard to make the evening a success.

And a success it was, raising over £1,500 for our village charity. The date is booked for next year,
and in our diaries already. The hats and checked shirts will come out again, and we'll be dosey
doh- ing and disco dancing once again.